Aging Gracefully

A Tree Falls in Oakland

When I woke up on May 18, something didn’t seem right. There was an eerie silence in the house. I couldn’t figure out what the vibe was, so I continued about my morning. First stop, taking my dog Diggity out back for her bathroom ritual. When I got to our previously fenced-in backyard, it was fenced-in no longer. It was tree-ed in. One of our older pine trees had split in half during a powerful windstorm and crashed to the ground.

I was astonished by what I saw. The tree made a sweeping gesture, with branches everywhere, fence gone, neighbor’s fence gone and landing a spot precariously on their roof. Thankfully, it was just perched on it and didn’t smash through it.

This was one giant pine tree. It was a miracle that no one got hurt. But that is not the miracle of the story.

I’d seen a lot that morning and it wasn’t even 8 a.m. yet. There was much to do, with insurance companies, arborists and clearing brush. (Like former President George W. Bush, I do some of my best thinking while clearing brush.)

The rest of the impacted trees had to come down. The branches needed to be picked up and, as it turned out, several of our other trees were deemed likely to fall and also had to be cut down.

I’d like to say at this point that I don’t want it to sound like I did any of the work… clearing brush, cutting down trees or even looking at the problem thoughtfully with a critical eye. I did none of those things. But I did call the insurance company and save 15% on insurance.

It was a unanticipated (to say the least) that the entire thing was covered by our homeowners insurance, the fence, the tree removal, and even the healthy-looking trees that were deemed dangerous. Dealing with the insurance company was actually relatively easy and satisfying.

I know that sounds unbelievable, stupefying, shocking and even yes, miraculous, but that also is not the miracle of the story.

Onward.

It was a sad day when the tree company came to cut down the trees. Sad because it was heartbreaking to see these beautiful trees go, and also sad because I work from home and hate the sound of chainsaws cutting trees.

They took down the giant pine tree and two other smaller trees, and groomed several of the trees that were mangled by the giant one falling on them. This tree did a lot of damage for an object that doesn’t move unless the wind blows it.

The tree people had to leave the branches on the ground for a couple of days until they could come back again and clear everything out. The branches lay seemingly harmlessly on the ground, souvenirs of what were once proud trees. We had some stumps in our midst. Our backyard looked more like a graveyard of tree tombstones.

Now. (Pause). Now, this is when the miracle occurred.

About a week later with the stumps laid bare, an astounding act of nature and a regeneration of life occurred. Around the stump of one of the trees that was cut down, either some of its residual branches that fell or seeds from the branches - I don’t even know, I’m not an arborist or a horticulturist, I’m a marketer - somehow suddenly sprouted into what looked like an entirely new tree/bush made up of branches or grown seedlings of the fallen tree. In literally three weeks, a new shrub/tree/bush emerged. In three weeks.

This was just a stump the day it was cut down. Three weeks later it had branches growing around it.

The same tree/shrub from a different angle. Stump is now a tree.

And if that weren’t enough, and it was, around the other stumps where the trees were splintered and stumped out by the tree cutters, roughly 10 feet in the air, also grew new life. All of the stumps grew sprouts and branches. Like on a Tuesday.

Now I’m not a religious man, and maybe this is more about evolution and life force than religion anyway, but God as my witness these trees regrew in less than a month. Stumps were sprouting like it was the first day of spring. It was like an Instagram video with time-lapse photography. I’ve never seen a stub sprout in real time, have you? I’ve never witnessed branches grow up from the ground on a perfect circle surrounding a stump, perhaps in sympathy, to create a new tree or bush or something green. I’m telling you, son, this is what happened.

It was a force of nature like I’ve never seen. More so than Taylor Swift. Even my dog is afraid to pee on the sacred new shrub/tree. You don’t mess with this kind of stuff. Moses will be reading commandments from that bush one day. (We do live up on a hill and enjoy unleavened bread, but only when dipped in egg and fried).

You still think trees aren’t living beings? You’ve heard the stories about trees, which have been scientifically documented, forming an underground network of roots that reach out to adjacent ailing trees to share resources, communicate with them and nurture them. Amazing.

And you may have also heard of trees growing in a circle around a dead tree, sprouting green shoots from its roots. These are commonly known as fairy rings, and we have them less than 10 minutes from our house. But those fairy rings take years to form.

These trees we take for granted every day are alive and we’d better stop messing with them. All of this time, these wooden things that we thought were just a source of fire or paper or things we wipe our ass with, were very much alive. Alive and kicking. And more sympathetic to its neighbors than most of my neighbors.

And in my backyard, a new tree with sprouts taking root everywhere. It happened overnight. In Oakland. Oakland, a city whose symbol is a blooming Oak tree. Get it: Oak-land. We're not just the home of Steph Curry, John Madden, or the Black Panthers. We're Tree-land. We’re tree land. The graveyard in my backyard became a garden.

A tree fell in our woods, and not only did it make a sound, it made a difference.